> (though I'd appreciate it if words weren't changed under me by fiat and I wasn't gaslit about what I'd been taught they meant)
Sorry, words change under us.
If you grew up hearing that retarded meant a very specific clinical thing, and then a bunch of people use it as an insult... you shouldn't be surprised, for instance, that those people and their families don't want to be referred by that term anymore or hear it in use.
It's not their fault or your fault, that it became a pejorative. But everyone has to deal with the aftermath anyways.
> but I do insist on being able to convey the concept of looking and seeming like a woman/man irrespective of the person's own opinions
"Likes to be called she, but hasn't transitioned".
Yes, it's getting a bit more complicated. Part of that at one point in time, your sex assigned at birth set everything about your life-- socially acceptable occupation, expected mannerisms, means of dress, acceptable social partners, allowed interest.
That's become much less over the last 100 years, and the pace of that change has accelerated in the past 5.
Someone born female can choose to be androgynous in a way that doesn't carry a bunch of tomboy female connotations now. That's good for a lot of people who had to struggle to fit into a category before. But it does mean we all have a little more to explain.
> The user is never going to see the code though.
No, but the user is going to see what the code does. Microsoft doesn't want to be in the middle of the debate about people writing code that allows someone to pick "nonbinary" by suggesting one way or another.
> I'm upset at deliberately limiting my ability to draw inferences from the information available.
Look, if your best hint at how good someone is at basketball is that they were an Asian male at birth, it's not a very good hint to draw inferences from. If you need to know that thing, measure it directly, or at least pick a better proxy. If not, leave yourself open to a bit more surprise.
> The fact that people object to anyone actually trying
No, having to continually "prove" your identity to each next skeptical person really sucks, because they're sure you can't be ______ because of _______.
The fact that women objected 50-100 years ago (and really, well, now) to people just habitually considering them "another dumb girl" doesn't somehow validate that girls are actually stupid. It's not like the same bad logic works now on new subjects.
> proves that we all know that the stereotypes actually work pretty well.
Confirmation bias. And even if they did, it can still be terribly unjust.
> "Likes to be called she, but hasn't transitioned".
Then can I just say "man who likes to be called she" (or "moid who likes to be called she", if it's the specific word that's the issue), if that's the best balance between concise and informative for the person in question?
> Look, if your best hint at how good someone is at basketball is that they were an Asian male at birth, it's not a very good hint to draw inferences from. If you need to know that thing, measure it directly, or at least pick a better proxy. If not, leave yourself open to a bit more surprise.
Most of life is making decisions based on limited information. You'll have dinner with, at best, maybe a hundred thousand people out of seven billion. Even to have a casual conversation with someone is to pick them out of the crowd. Even if you were to profile strictly by age, sex, dress, race, ... (which is not remotely what I'm advocating), you'd still get plenty of surprises.
Sorry, words change under us.
If you grew up hearing that retarded meant a very specific clinical thing, and then a bunch of people use it as an insult... you shouldn't be surprised, for instance, that those people and their families don't want to be referred by that term anymore or hear it in use.
It's not their fault or your fault, that it became a pejorative. But everyone has to deal with the aftermath anyways.
> but I do insist on being able to convey the concept of looking and seeming like a woman/man irrespective of the person's own opinions
"Likes to be called she, but hasn't transitioned".
Yes, it's getting a bit more complicated. Part of that at one point in time, your sex assigned at birth set everything about your life-- socially acceptable occupation, expected mannerisms, means of dress, acceptable social partners, allowed interest.
That's become much less over the last 100 years, and the pace of that change has accelerated in the past 5.
Someone born female can choose to be androgynous in a way that doesn't carry a bunch of tomboy female connotations now. That's good for a lot of people who had to struggle to fit into a category before. But it does mean we all have a little more to explain.
> The user is never going to see the code though.
No, but the user is going to see what the code does. Microsoft doesn't want to be in the middle of the debate about people writing code that allows someone to pick "nonbinary" by suggesting one way or another.
> I'm upset at deliberately limiting my ability to draw inferences from the information available.
Look, if your best hint at how good someone is at basketball is that they were an Asian male at birth, it's not a very good hint to draw inferences from. If you need to know that thing, measure it directly, or at least pick a better proxy. If not, leave yourself open to a bit more surprise.
> The fact that people object to anyone actually trying
No, having to continually "prove" your identity to each next skeptical person really sucks, because they're sure you can't be ______ because of _______.
The fact that women objected 50-100 years ago (and really, well, now) to people just habitually considering them "another dumb girl" doesn't somehow validate that girls are actually stupid. It's not like the same bad logic works now on new subjects.
> proves that we all know that the stereotypes actually work pretty well.
Confirmation bias. And even if they did, it can still be terribly unjust.